Football

It sure has been a wild season in the NFL, but that probably pales in comparison to the ups and downs we’ve experienced here at Joboo. We started off by offering you Lance’s Stone Cold Locks of the Week, and despite the bravado cold was the only adjective that accurately described Lance’s ability to correctly predict NFL winners. I would like to say that we were all a little broken up by Lance ending his tenure as pickmaster, but to be honest it saved us from having to apologize for how bad the picks were. Then we moved on to letting the Champ in addition to his Bold Predictions starting flexing his NFL picking muscle. Predictably, those NFL picks turned out about as well as the Detroit Tigers World Series experience. We even went as far as to let my girlfriend THROW HATCHETS in an attempt to bring you accurate NFL picks. However the regular season ended without a clear choice for who should be making picks for us.

Joboo Co-founder Doug even took a stab at making picks in the playoffs, and quickly went 0-4 bookending the shortest tenure of NFL predictions thus far on the website. I’ve somehow managed to stay sane enough to avoid publicly making predictions, aside from my correct call in the NFC Championship game, and if I were smarter than I am I would retire 1-0. (Forgetting of course my preseason NFL predictions that may best be described as “putrid”) But really, what are the chances of THAT happening. Read More

We all knew it was going to happen, but it still had to be seen to be believed. The New Orleans Saints walked into Soldier Field and proceeded to walk all over the helpless Chicago Bears. For a franchise that had never even made it to the Super Bowl, this coronation was long overdue. Still grappling with the after effects of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana needed these Saints, hell, the whole country outside of Chicago needed this team. The imaginative play calling of rookie, and coach of the year, head coach Sean Payton was inspired, and matched only by the unparrelled offensive talent of Drew Brees, Reggie Bush, Deuce McCallister and the bevy of talented wide recievers. Brees proved why he is the best quarterback in the league, and Reggie Bush solidified why he should have been the number one overall pick as he proved the Bears defense to be slow and unathletic. But after all, this is what the experts all predicted from the start.

WAIT A SECOND. . . .That’s not what happened at all. God dammit, I know I shouldn’t write these damn things beforehand. Read More

I fear I have no choice at this point. THE HELL WITH KATRINA. There, I said it, and you know what it feels GREAT. I have been kind of avoiding ESPN’s NFL coverage since last Sunday because I knew that the feel good story of the year would be permeating the airwaves. I really should have continued that policy, but for whatever reason I decided to check out the ESPN’s “expert” picks. You can take a look for yourself, but I’ll save you the trouble. NOT ONE OF THEM, NOT A SINGLE GOD DAMN ONE, THINK THE BEARS ARE GOING TO WIN THIS SUNDAY!!!!!!!! Read More

Ok, this really isn’t about Brett Favre so much as the Bears. Really, despite being a Bear’s fan, or maybe because I’m a Bears fan, I respect the hell out of Brett. Sure, the media coverage is a bit overdone, but you can’t blame him for that. He just goes out and competes at a very high level. He’s done it for a long time, and it’s been at such a high level that no matter his teammates and no matter his opponent he ALWAYS has a chance to win. So, basically in that statement all my fustration as a Bears’ fan should be obvious.

Really, I mean how hard can it be to play quarterback in the NFL. On second thought, it’s probably pretty hard, and really I guess I shouldn’t be too angry at Rex and Brian. A better question should probably be, “how hard is it to find a guy to play quarterback that won’t KILL your team?” I’m not even saying you should expect to find a great quarterback every time you go out looking for one. I’m sure lots of teams passed on some hillbilly from Southern Mississippi with a strong arm. A lot of times stumbling into a franchise quarterback is how it’s going to be done. Sure you can look at Peyton Manning and Carson Palmer as franchise type guys that were drafted high with good pedigrees. But last time I checked Ryan Leaf had a pretty decent college career. So why are franchise killing quarterbacks out there? I have the answer, and it’s easier than you might think. Read More

I should probably start out by saying that while a rabid Bears fan, I for one was never talking that 16-0 noise. Of course I’ve wondered aloud about how cool it would be to stop hearing stories about some Dolphin’s team with Bob Griese at quarterback and even hypothesized about it being possible if they could just make it out of Gillette Stadium alive. Luckily, the Dolphins ended any of that silly discussion that was even infecting the major media. On the flip side of that, I realize the Bears lost to the Dolphins, but suddenly they are terrible? Come on, even great teams lose games they probably shouldn’t, so expecting merely a good Bears team to not stumble is ridiculous. So what are we left with after their victory in the Meadowlands on Sunday night? Read More

Ok all of you NFL fans… I have a question for you. This question centers around two rules: the first being that in the NFL, for a catch in the end zone to be a touchdown the player must have both feet inbounds when he comes down; and the second being that as long as the ball has crossed the plane of the endzone it is a touchdown. Here’s my hypothetical… What is the result when a player jumps into the air over the endzone line and catches a ball (while technically in the endzone), however, before both of his feet touch in the endzone, the top half of his body leans forward (this includes the ball) over the endzone line (back out of the endzone towards the one yard line). It is this way when he touches the ground. Is it a touchdown, since the ball crossed the plane, and his feet were technically in the endzone when he landed with the ball…. or is it not a touchdown, since the ball was technically still on the playing field and not in the endzone when his feet touched and when he was down?

One of the running trends here on Joboo has been calling ESPN and their “personalities” out for stupid decisions. Well, when you are the worldwide leader in sports television and part of the evil empire that is Disney you’re going to take your lumps. I’m not going to apologize for ripping on them, but in the interest of fairness I have to give ESPN some credit for canning Jason Whitlock’s fat ass. I’m not even sure what the real reason ESPN offered for firing Whitlock, but he claims that it was merely because he was exercising his constitutional right of free speech. I would like to believe he was fired for merely being a moron, or in the alternative not knowing a god damned thing about sports but judging by ESPN’s other personal decisions there had to be something else here. Well AOL decided to give Jason a shot to reach out to the masses, and boy did he reach out. Click the read more link to see the “highlights” of Whitlock’s first weekly column on AOL. Read More